


You Are My Joy

by imaginary_iby



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: 5.19 episode tag, Episode Tag, M/M, uncle steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 19:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3541223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_iby/pseuds/imaginary_iby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The need to talk to her, to remind himself that there’s still good in the world, is fierce.  Steve has his phone out before he even realizes that the inevitable tremble in his voice is only going to frighten her.  She’s thirteen years old, she shouldn’t have to listen to him fall apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are My Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my goodness. I haven't written anything in an age, and now I'm posting something. Threw this together in a flurry of 5.19 feelings. I hope you enjoy! Oh - title is from a song by Reindeer Section.

Steve can sense that HPD is getting anxious. The world might as well be a mile away, he’s so buried within his thoughts, but he can still feel the weight of their gazes as they flicker over him. 

One hour, two, pushing three, he sits in his truck outside that monster’s house. He can barely bring himself to turn the key in the ignition, let alone fight traffic and file reports, and so he sits and waits. 

What exactly he’s waiting for, he doesn’t really know. Time to rewind, maybe, to take him back to a world where none of those children had suffered so profound a cruelty – but he’s done too many tours and walked too many crime scenes to trick himself into believing that’s possible. 

Waiting for Danny. Danny, whose heart would be broken, but who knew how to carry a broken heart. Danny, who would cross the street, head bowed low and hands in his pockets, before climbing into the truck and sitting by Steve’s side. 

But there’s nobody. Nothing but the scurry of forensic techs and the gathering of curious neighbors behind police tape.

There’s nobody, and Steve still isn’t ready. The prospect of shrinking those poor little faces into something as meagre as words on a page - well, he’s just too damn hurt and too damn tired. Definitely too tired to walk through his front door and into a quiet house.

Somewhere along the way, he grew used to midnight infomercials and Gracie’s wobbly clarinet practice, used to Danny shouting at the coffee machine every morning like clockwork. It wasn’t part of the plan – not that anybody could plan for toast crumbs in their bed and ties in their wardrobe.

And now Steve’s plans are nought for two: he’d promised Danny an uneventful week, in his absence, and coming apart at the seams in the cab of his truck is undoubtedly not what Danny had in mind.

_”Don’t blow anything up,” Danny says, rolling onto the tips of his toes, pressing close and tight against Steve’s front. The butterfly strips that crisscross his brow look like they pull as he smiles, but if Danny really wants to smile then there’s no power on the earth that can stop him. “We’ll be back in a week.”_

We’ll be back in a week.

Gracie.

The need to talk to her, to remind himself that there’s still good in the world, is fierce. Steve has his phone out and dialling before he realizes that the inevitable tremble in his voice is only going to frighten her. She’s thirteen years old, she shouldn’t have to listen to him cry.

“Hello?”

He toys with the idea of hanging up – angry with himself for this sudden inability to get it together - before realizing that it’s Danny’s voice that he’s hearing. Even over the crackle of a long distance phone call to a Newark house with dodgy reception, Steve would know that voice anywhere.

“Danny,” he croaks, voice thick, and it’s only a few quiet seconds later that Danny whispers, “Oh, Babe,” with all the understanding in the world.

“They were just little kids.” Steve’s not making any sense, he’s given no context, and yet Danny sets to work with a stream of consoling noises.

“You rang Gracie’s phone?” Danny finally asks, once Steve has stopped rattling his breath into the phone.

The question only makes Steve’s pulse rocket again. “Yes, I’m sorry. I just needed to-“

“Hey, no,” Danny soothes. “It’s okay. Believe me, I understand.”

Steve knows this, better than he knows anything. Grace is a light - _the_ light, in Danny’s life; a happiness that even the darkest days can’t touch. But for all that they’re family, a little trio built around Saturday swims and Sunday stacks of strawberry pancakes, he is not Grace’s father and she is not his daughter. As he sits in the cab of his truck, lost in a way that he barely knows how to deal with, he feels this more than ever. Who is he, to hope that Gracie can help to put him back together.

“Steve,” Danny says, pulling Steve out of his thoughts. “There are a lot of things in this world that I have to protect Grace from. But you? You’re not one of them. Do you want to talk to her?”

Steve coughs, clears his throat, Danny’s trust in him almost blinding. “Yes, if that’s okay.”

“Hang on a sec.” 

There’s a shuffle, the snick of a door opening, then the empty silence of mute. The fact that Danny is most likely filling Gracie in, bracing her in vague terms for the fact that Steve is upset, makes him want to crawl into a hole.

“Hello?” Grace’s voice breaks the silence, soft and worried. She’s such a stoic little thing most of the time - forget simply crawling into a hole, Steve wants to dig it for himself, first.

“Hey, Grace,” he says, closing his eyes, resting his head against the warm glass of the window.

“Uncle Steve. Are you okay?”

He could lie. Hell, he should lie. But Danny gave him permission, so what comes out instead is, “It’s been a rough day, Gracie.”

Another snick, the door shutting, and Steve is suddenly clear in the knowledge that it’s just him and Grace for this conversation.

“Did someone die?” she asks. For all that she’s sheltered under Danny’s wing, she’s the kid of a cop and she shows it. 

Nothing, however, will make Steve divulge the hurtful particulars. “Yeah, Kid.” _Kid._ Barely older than those poor little souls in the photographs. “Yeah. We lost the fight, today.” 

Eran may be dead in the morgue, but there is no victory to be had.

Grace is silent for a moment, processing, before she throws a curveball that would put one of her father’s pizza-rants to shame. “Danno’s been helping me write my essay on Beluga whales for biology. Can I read it to you?”

Even as she grows up, her faith that Steve knows everything there is to know about every creature in the sea, never waivers. It’s a faith that soothes Steve greatly, and he smiles, says, “Absolutely. I would love to hear about Beluga whales.”

She takes him on a chilly journey from the coasts of Greenland to the inlets of Alaska and the rivers of Siberia, her voice washing over him better than any North Shore wave. She and Danny don’t seem quite so far away when Steve can feel how the world is connected by water.

“You know, Uncle Steve,” she says around a yawn, “you’re one of the best people in my life. And everything you do – “ she pauses, and Steve knows that she’s trying to reshuffle his own words from a week ago into something that she can give back to him. “Every day you try to help people.”

She yawns again, chuffing at the end just like Danny does. Thought brings forth the man, and the door opens again with a now familiar snick.

“You ready for bed, Monkey?” Danny asks, and Steve can only sit and listen to them chatter as he wills his heart back into position, a little less broken now that Grace’s words are settling deep. 

If Grace’s voice was comforting, then both father and daughter together is more than enough to get Steve to turn the key in the ignition. He guides the Silverado down the street and around the corner, and although he’ll never forget the photos of those little faces, he feels better for the distance. 

“Night, Uncle Steve,” Grace says, gathering his attention once more. “I love you.”

They’re new at this, new at these words. Hell, he’s only just started to learn, with Danny. But Steve thinks he’s getting better at them, and it feels good to say, “I love you too, Kid. I love you too.”


End file.
